Proton beam therapy sparks hospital arms race

When it comes to reining in health care spending, it still seems like each hospital administrator thinks the guy at the other hospital should do it. Hospitals are still racing to offer expensive new technology — even when it hasn't been proved to work better than cheaper approaches. Case in point: , a high-tech radiation treatment for cancer. The local government in Washington, D.C., is on the verge of approving two proton beam facilities at a total cost of $153 million. The centers would be owned by the two dominant hospital systems in the area: Johns Hopkins Medicine and MedStar Health.